Back to search

FRIHUMSAM-Fri prosj.st. hum og sam

Getting on in life: Strategies of middle-class reproduction

Alternative title: Å lykkes i livet: Middelklassens reproduksjonsstrategier

Awarded: NOK 3.4 mill.

How are social class differences expressed and maintained in a comparatively egalitarian society like the Norwegian? This project has examined how class relationships are maintained in several ways. A key point in the project is that inequality in Norwegian society can not be described exhaustively a only one-dimensionally hierarchical, as a matter of how much resources or capital one has. The project has shown that the form of capital - economic or cultural - plays a major role. Whether one has much or little capital and whether capital is most of the economic or cultural kind plays a significant role in how Norwegians live, what kind of opportunities they have in their lives. what they appreciate and what they think and mean. This is shown in a number of areas, not least in the question of social mobility into higher social strata. The results show that even though the Norwegian class system is by no means completely closed, there are still strong tendencies for social closure, especially around the most privileged positions. In general, those who come from privileged backgrounds more often themselves end up in such a position, compared to those who come from other backgrounds. At the same time, there is a significant difference between different positions according to the form of capital: Although it is generally easier to take an elite position if one originated in the elite, it is far more often that those who come from cultural capital groups themselves end up in that same group, than anyone from, say, an economic capital background landing in a cultural capital group. This is referred to as capital-specific mobility barriers. We also study how class differences are manifested in cultural and political divisions. On the one hand, the project has documented that there are systematic differences in taste and lifestyle along the main fault lines of the class structure. In the privileged strata there are variants of resource-deamnding taste - either because it costs money or because it requires some kind of symbolic mastering. It also appears that there are clear political divisions by both the amount and the type of capital. These analyzes indicate that class politics has changed form: while in the past, those least endowed with capital voted to the left and the privileged voted right, today it appears that the left-wing position is taken by those with the most cultural capital. Overall, the project shows that class divisions are still of major importance in Norwegian society, but the form it takes may differ from how one usually conceives it.

Why do middle-class children so often land middle-class careers? This project will study the ways in which Norwegian middle-class parents help their offspring. That addresses the key issue in stratification research, namely the stability of class relation s. Through qualitative interviews, the project will analyse 1) interviewees accounts of how they got into their careers, with special attention to how parents helped them into it, and 2) how the interviewees, as parents, seek to increase their childrens c hances of educational success and occupational advancement. The general working hypothesis is that they do this by drawing on different forms of resources - economic, cultural or social. Pre-existing studies have focused on the UK and the US. Unlike these studies, this one will systematically address internal differences in the middle class by interviewing people in a broader range of middle-class occupations. This is novel and important, as one should expect some variation in how resources are used depen ding on what specific career is in focus. Analysing these processes in a relatively egalitarian social democracy will give insights into generalities and national peculiarities of middle-class strategies by comparing with earlier work. Most work on social mobility stop at the identification of statistical patterns. However, this project will pick up from there, uncovering the active engagement, or lack thereof, on the part of middle-class parents in their children's future. This will advance knowledge on processes of social mobility and of relations of social inequality more generally. While resolutely empirical, the project will make explicit theoretical contributions to core debates in social science: about the relevance of class to contemporary society ; about how class inequalities are reproduced; about the role of cultural capital in class processes; and about how social action and structural analysis can be integrated.

Funding scheme:

FRIHUMSAM-Fri prosj.st. hum og sam